Turns out the path to fortune involved a combination of cars and soccer. Last July, Psyonix released Rocket League for Playstation 4 and PC. With promotion from Sony as a temporary exclusive (and provided free for a month on Playstation Plus), the game took off on arrival and became massively popular. Now comes word from the Wall Street Journal that Rocket League has earned the company nearly $50 million in profits this year, despite being available for only half a year. Not bad for a game that cost $2 million to produce.
$2 million is still a lot to spend for a tiny studio, and Psyonix worked on Rocket League for over two years while keeping themselves afloat with other projects, such as contract work for Mass Effect 3. Now they can pretty much take whatever work they want, and the offers are pouring in. Dave Hagewood, founder and CEO of Psyonix, told the WSJ that he didn’t truly realize how much of a impact his company had made until the DeLorean was offered in the game this fall, as part of Back to the Future’s 30th anniversary. “It didn’t really sink in until they told me they had to get Steven Spielberg’s approval.” Now other famous cars are scheduled to stop by; one Hagewood revealed was KITT from Knight Rider.
Next year, Rocket League will be expanding further — once their Playstation exclusivity deal ends, you’ll be able to play the game on XBox One; however, it will not include cross-platform play like the other two versions have.
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